After the war, British investigators found and translated a series of letters written by Toepfer in 1937. He claimed at that time that he was "close to the SS," that he was a "sponsering [sic] member of the SS" and that, in response to the desire of fellow citizens "to name me to the party, I have gladly agreed". (Despite this reported agreement, his name does not appear in known party records.) Little of the evidence given above about the subversive activities of the Toepfer foundations in the 1930s was included in the official history. 

German Chancellor Helmut Kohl receives the Toepfer-funded European Prize for Statesmanship in 1991. Toepfer is on the far right 

In its own defence, the foundation points out that the history does reveal the shocking fact that a branch of Toepfer's company in Poznan (Posen) supplied various goods for the German ghetto administration in Lodz. However, the fact that these supplies included slaked lime, a product used among other things to cover cadavers, was not mentioned in the introductory chapter. Moreover, the commission's files in the Alfred Toepfer Archive, some of which I read before they were closed to me during the course of my research, reveal the severe pressure piled on the author of the relevant chapter. Professor Christian Gerlach, author of the chapter in the official Toepfer history on the firm's wartime activities in German-occupied Eastern Europe, has written recently to the Toepfer Foundation to confirm that there were "massive efforts to influence me" and "to render my text harmless (in particular by cutting it)". Further, "a thoroughly defensive attitude reigned" in the commission relating "above all to basic interpretations of the role of Toepfer". 

Even the reservations about Toepfer included in the official history are characteristically ignored during the high-profile ceremonial occasions which Toepfer loved and which his children and his foundations have continued. The founder is still glorified. Greywash becomes whitewash. In 2007, Hans Mommsen praised Toepfer as a great European of "exemplary inner consistency" who showed "no trace of anti-Semitism". According to Mommsen, the objectives of the youth hostels he set up before the war were rambling and care for the environment. An illustrated celebratory volume published for the foundation's 75th anniversary in 2007 continued the glorification with the barest mentions of the Nazi past. In a collection of 75 photographs, hardly any showed the foundation's Nazi activities.

Apart from viewing its history through rose-tinted glasses, the foundation makes strange arguments. In February, its chief executive, Ansgar Wimmer, wrote to Oxford to set out its latest position. He acknowledged that Toepfer's firm supplied slaked lime to the Lodz ghetto, but he claimed that Toepfer was neither directly nor indirectly involved in the Holocaust. Moreover, Toepfer made no "overall" profit from the war. This is not only unlikely, unproven and contrary to the findings of members of the "Independent Academic Commission", it is morally irrelevant. Whether or not Toepfer's firm sold slaked lime at a profit, or whether its profit on the slaked lime was balanced by losses on other activities, does not affect his guilt. Nor is it possible for the purposes of scholarship money for Oxford and Cambridge to segregate the clean from the tainted money in the Toepfer endowment. 

A further flawed pleading is that Toepfer did nothing illegal or criminal. This may well be true in terms of the Nazi legal order (though, even here, there are doubts in view of the tax-evasion charges). Since Nazi laws were so cruel and perverted, doing nothing to contravene those laws is hardly a recommendation. 

Another line of argument was that the good uses to which the Toepfer endowment is now put counterbalance any past blots. Wimmer asked: "Is there a balance sheet which allows us to weigh good deeds and bad deeds against each other?" Moreover, people have the right to be judged on "the full picture". Toepfer was "one of the most remarkable and outstanding European philanthropic figures of the 20th century". In lieu of the apology which members of Toepfer's family and the foundation resolutely refuse to give, the foundation is taking actions seemingly designed to avoid rejection of its tainted scholarships by Oxford and Cambridge.